# What are the average salaries of physicians in all the developed countries

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-average-salaries-of-physicians-in-all-the-developed-countries/230926>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 24, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-average-salaries-of-physicians-in-all-the-developed-countries/230926 "2004-02-24T17:05:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-average-salaries-of-physicians-in-all-the-developed-countries/230926/1 "2004-02-24T17:05:24Z")

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What are the average salaries of physicians in the developed countries like Germany, the US, UK, Japan, Sweden, etc?

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**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-average-salaries-of-physicians-in-all-the-developed-countries/230926/2 "2004-02-24T18:18:49Z")

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For Germany could not find really good overall numbers.  
This link gives average incomes for different groups of self-employed professionals in Berlin 1992 (!):  
[http://www.statistik-berlin.de/pms/3b4/1996/96-05-24.html](http://www.statistik-berlin.de/pms/3b4/1996/96-05-24.html)

It gives a number of about 102 000 EUR (ca 130 000 $ at _today’s_ exchange rate) for self-employed physicians per year.  
In the long run incomes went down in real purchasing power, sometimes even nominally. There is a very wide range of possible incomes from barely breaking even to several times the above number depending on employment status, specialization, region, insurance model of patients…

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**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-average-salaries-of-physicians-in-all-the-developed-countries/230926/3 "2004-02-24T19:43:04Z")

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I found a reference stating that in \*\* 1997 \*\* the average net income of a generalist in France was 25 000 FF / month. That would be around 46 000 € /year 7 years ago.

The document stated that this average wasn’t very significant, since there was huge differences in income.  
Another document confirm this range of income : in 1998, the average net income would have been :

-50 800 € for a generalist

-122 900 € for an anaesthesist

-88 900 € for a surgeon

-156 900 € for a psychiatrist  
These figures include include doctors working in both the private and the public sector. I found somewhere that concerning the generalists, 60 % of them work in the private sector, and 30% in the public sector, essentially in hospitals (where are the missing 10%? I wouldn’t know).  
All the figures I found are roughly similar. From 45-50 000 €/year for generalists to 140-150 000 € /year for psychiatrists and radiologists, who have, for some reason, the highest average income.